Rewind
by CraftyNotepad
Summary: Tired of being disappointed when good storylines are abandoned? Me, too. This experimental fanfic is being written with the ending coming first, so it will always be finished, even while it's still being written.


REWIND

Long-time reader, first time poster. Tired of being disappointed when good storylines are abandoned? This experimental fanfic is being written with the ending coming first, so it will always be finished, even though it's still being written...hmm. And you thought time travel was confusing?

Disclaimer: Makalowa Tsee-Tonga! (Heh, heh, heh!)

Umm ... yeah. What Curtis said was: This work of fiction is based on characters and situations owned by the Walt Disney Company. No copyright infringement is intended, and no profit is being made from this. The following is purely for entertainment and my own personal therapy. _Curtis, would you mind coming over here, please? What are you trying to do? I'm going to have to change the rating on this story if anyone translates what you said. No, I don't care if you heard Pim say it first. No, I don't care how many times she's said it, either. Accurate or not, it's inappropriate. Yes, like a bad rock. (Sheesh!)_

2124 U-Day

Following its predecessor, a palm-sized rock skips over and over, nine times in all, across the waves, slowing, slowing, then it stops and returns almost identically along its flight path. Curt picks it up again, or maybe it's one of its fellow stones strewn over a few square meters of sand that his hand finds. "Go away, stupid rock!"

It had been hours that he'd been working at trying to dispose of the remaining eleven stones as Pim had shown him, but while hers skipped and sunk into the ocean, his kept coming back. Pim had told him that he could eat his fill of Unification Loaf when he had completed the ritual of the skipping stones. Yes, it had been hours and Pim still hadn't become tired of watching it. She'd disguised inertia disks as stones, and placed them in an innocent location out of sight of her family's picnic site, but where she could lead Curtis into finding them. Her stone, of course, had no inertia disk inside. The inertia disks converted one-half of the highest point of acceleration into stored potential energy that was released as kinetic energy at a preset velocity in the opposite direction.

Just good, clean fun. Pim was still awaiting the official and very public decision of the World Council as to her punishment. Sure, she'd won, but the WC was a spiteful body that didn't appreciate a little girl illustrating to all humanity that she had comprehended a situation better than any of their cream-of-the-crop world leaders.

Funny thing was, she didn't fear their retribution. She hadn't even told her brother that he owed her, again. Typical punishment for pissing off the World Council publicly was three years of banishment—either back in time (not allowed anymore, but at least the "Thanks to the Diffys Law turned out not to be about any of their actions, but also another massive screw-up of the World Council's parading under a title deceptively designed to shift the blame from the WC), asteroid base, desert island, mountain top, or an isolated office cubical. They'd decide where she'd be calling home for the next three years, and she'd, in accordance with the "We're Not Animals; We're Human Beings" decision of 2082, be allowed to select one item to take with her. She'd need a plan for each of the potentially parlous prisons, but today was to be enjoyed. Unification Day was always celebrated with the family and this would be last UNIDay together for the next three years.

When it came to the World Council, Pim's attitude could be summarized as "smug." "It was their own fault," she said aloud, as remained her habit. She waltzed into the sand castle she had made with Curtis earlier, quickly climbing the highest tower's steps to survey the beach. Pim didn't do anything small. Forget the shovel and pail; she'd used an aerial crane while Curtis used a multi-finned surfboard as a shovel to sculpt their structure with. The whole building smelled like ocean and something alive. She flipped open her WZRD to check her mailbox. There had been no let up in the rate of messages she'd been receiving since her, uh, escape. "It was their own fault. KEEP TRYING, CURTIS! You're getting closer!" He wasn't, of course, but it was only his second time seeing the ocean. The water tasted different, so why shouldn't rocks behave differently?

The WC wasn't really at fault; just stuck in 22nd Century thinking. Pim had learned to adapt, to be unpredictable, to be primitive by 22nd Century standards during her stay in Pickford. In the end, the WC had released her to her family's custody after her unexpected escape. That little stroll hadn't endeared her to the WC either, but a sizable number of Earth's citizens had cheered her once more, and she could turn that kind of enthusiasm into worshiping. Served the Council right. _They had taken the unpopular stand of placing Pim under "protective custody" after their loss. There were no WZRDs allowed in the Global Justice Center--energy scanners took care of that, but no one in 2124 would have imagined that anyone would have packed a sledge hammer, busted her own way out through the foundation, and finally tunneled outside with only a large tablespoon. And she thought she'd left all the knuckle-draggers in the 21st Century._

Speaking of knuckleheads, she remembered barking a Curtis when he forgot to start the dungeons for the castle. In truth, she'd also forgot about them, so busy with the thought of savoring Curtis's upcoming puzzle, as well as structurally enhancing the sand castle's walls with a WZRD. Then, there was the 22nd Century Pacific. A couple of degrees warmer than when she swam in it a century ago. Even the sand was different. Now, it was clean — no cigarette butts or broken glass, but it wasn't pristine. It peppered the castle walls with specks of metallic blue from the recent remote comet racing finals, and earlier that morning she was preoccupied with deciding if she liked the prismatic effects created by sunlight reflecting off this contaminate, but the incoming clouds had mooted that issue. Back to knuckleheads. Where was her brother?

Overcast sky had added the accessories of real homemade knitted wool sweaters to the blue and pink over-sized hats that Lil' Phil and Lil' Mia sported, along with their two-sizes too-large wrap-around sunglasses and matching orange swimwear covered with duckies. These two were the shovel and pail crowd, both cousins and sister and brother. Always under the watchful eyes of their mothers and grandmother this day, they were as intense in the building of their pile of sand as their aunt was with Curtis that morning.

Seeing the busy toddlers, passersby would also notice double Keelys and duplicate Phils and mistakenly dismissed them as simply another set clones. Yes, the beach was filled with the Diffy family—three generations worth. Not the East side Diffys, of course. They were never invited. The important thing was that both grandparents were getting along with both sets of their "kids." Trying to outdo each other, the three guys were busy tricking out the waves on their boards, while the gals were engaged in sunworship, toddler oversight, and planning.

"They're fine, Honey," Grandma Barb assured Keely. "There's not much wind and, just listen to them, they're happily chattering up a storm."

Keely relaxed a bit, glancing at "Auntie Kay," who just confidently smiled. That frustrated Keely more than a bit. How'd she get so wise? Of course, Keely only knew the answer to that too well, so she relaxed a bit more, again. "Okay, give me another."

"Adelaide," suggested Kay.

"Euww. Are you trying to jinx your niece into being born with a mustache?" With both her hands Keely covered her slightly swollen belly in a defensive manner. Another month, she mused, and she would have had to pick out a different swimsuit that would have fit better.

Her beach chair rocked chaotically because Kay was giggling uncontrollably, so Barbara would have to be up for the next suggestion.

"Cynthia Louise?" Barb offered, half-heartedly. It was a combination of her mother's and one of Keely's grandmothers' names, and, since the girls hadn't suggested it yet, it seemed her place to do so.There was a pause, not a "we're-thinking-it-over" type pause, but a "no-way-never-uh-uh" kind of pause that was quickly followed by a polite dismissal.

"Let's put that on the "maybe" list, Keely said with a smile.

All three ladies knew that it wouldn't be brought up again. The name game continued. Sometimes it was serious:

"Debbie," "Dennis" (remember dependable Dennis from Video Lab?), "Joan," "Mandy?" Then, there were the times when the girls got punchy: "Tuku," "SkcansTar" ("Rat Snacks" spelled backward), "Cinnamon," "Weena" from that novel that nobody could remember the title to...

Keely liked "Cinnamon" as a nickname to go along with Salt and Pepper, but then wondered what moniker her Mia should have to go with her personality. Her daughter's name was also an act of birth in itself. So much to say, so many people in her life to honor: "M" for "Mandy," "I" for "tIa," and finishing with "A" from "viA. Put them all together, they spell 'Mia.' That's the special girl for ...

"We're going to name our next child 'Pheely.'"

"PheeLY? REalLY? Are you having a boy or a girl?"

"Not decided yet, but the name's definitely going to be Pheely."

"Trying to outdo 'Mia?'"

"It's from ..."

"I know what it's from," Keely sort of snapped. Kay looked identical to Keely, but Keely had to keep checking herself to stop from interpreting Kay's personality as a demeaning attitude. It wasn't, of course. You could hear that there wasn't an ounce of bile in her tone; it was only confidence. No jewelry to figit with at the beach, so Keely made a nervous and unnecessary adjustment to the top of her swimsuit. Second guessing was just Keely's style, instead of picking a course and sticking to it, except for her decision to build a life with Phil in the 22nd Century. For that, she had made the decision and never looked back. That thought make her smile wide and feel better about herself instantly.

Phil separated from his surfing partners, abandoning his board, and joined the junior castle builders. Looking at the half-meter tall inverted cone — more of a bump, really -- he said smiling, "That's a good castle, worthy of its queen and king."

The kids looked up and smiled gleefully, seemingly inviting him to join in, and he did, knowing that the ladies would have his involvement be included in their conversation. He enjoyed the simple act of building a sand castle like every kid on the planet.

It had been a sometimes hard three years since they had returned to 2121. Things had looked bad more than once, but these kids were born in this century and had a right to stay here, a right to exist. Even if not everyone on the planet agreed with him, these children were not a mistake. Phil looked up Keely's way and waved his now sandy palm. Sure, thinks had been rough, but with Pim's help (of all people), everything was going to work out. He had Keels and Mia and was happy to live for the day. Tomorrow would be beautiful as well. Just wait and see.

Out of sight on the other side of the over-sized sand castle Pim watched from the edge of the castle's moat as Curtis threw an inertia stone skywards. Already, he had tried throwing them along the beach and inland with no better results, and hoped this would be the solution to his way to a stack of Uniloaf slices.

The stone came hurtling back with not only it's own kinetic energy, but gravity's added to it. At that velocity, Pim knew that it could be lethal. When she cried out to Curtis, strangers on the beach looked on in horror. Curtis was the classic deer-in-the-headlights -- he couldn't move or look away. Pim tackled him just before the stone buried itself half-a-meter in the wet sand with a "thwack".

"Of all the pea-brained, numb-skulled, ..." She stopped when she saw the fear painted on Curtis's face as his eyes were fixed on the gaping maw in the sand. Was he shaking or was it her? Pim's throat tightened and her voice failed her as she attempted to continue her verbal flailing of her favorite caveman. Were those tears on her face? Why'd she risk her life for Curtis? Caring? Love? Instinct? Or was it payback?

"If I end up on a barren island or mountain top, would you go with me, Curtis?" The rules state that the condemned can take one item with them. Nearly everyone takes a WZRD. Curtis instead of a WZRD? He's no Danny Dawkins, but he takes orders well, is used to surviving with what passes for his wits, and is both scared of and worships me. Plus, he's here, and the World Council doesn't know what to do with him, either. I could get away with it.

"Pim save Curtis. Curtis will save Pim."

"There's half my options covered. Let's go get some lunch, Sasquatch."


End file.
